Pages

Monday, September 25, 2017

So, after being informed of the Skeletons at Walgreens, I started paying attention to the toy sections at other unlikely locales, and found this in the local Dollar Tree!

Zombies!

There are supposed to be 14 figures per bag, but I only got 13. Whatever. They are all unique poses, two of which are dogs! Here's the poses!

They appear to be pretty good sculpts. Especially considering the source. Suitably gnarly and gross.

The one exception being the female figure on the left, and the guy on the right. Are these supposed to be scared victims or better dressed zombies? I'm just going to use them as zombies, but it'd be nice to know for sure. And look, a crawler!

Plus a gravestone.

A pretty nice score, when you get right down to it. There's simply some great bagged toy soldier deals out right now!

Sunday, September 24, 2017

Yes, this is truly a thing. They're in the Walgreens seasonal section with all of the other Halloween paraphernalia. You get 16 for $1.99, which isn't an Earth shattering deal, but is not too bad either. There are four poses, though some of them have difficulty standing.

A young British lieutenant rushed into the quiet conference room, disturbing the two old generals who had been looking out the window and chatting. They turned as the younger man entered, as he paused breathless before SACEUR and REDCOMEUR for what he imagined would be the most important briefing of his life.

"Sir, you'll never believe the reports we're getting out of CINCAFMED!"

Both of the generals chuckled, and the American, a scarred 4 star army general with a prosthetic hand, told the lieutenant "Son, we've been protecting this crazy world since probably before you were born. We've heard it all."

The German, also a scarred 4 star, with an edelweiss embroidered eyepatch over his left eye, said "Try us."

"It's Karnak sir, they are saying that the ruins at Karnak are being overrun by..." He paused again.

The generals were more serious now. "Go ahead." The German urged again.

"Evil Teddy bears."

KARNAK/2215hrs/Operation Violet Salesman

The mission at Karnak started out well enough. Golem-6 took point, and thought for the first few engagements, he could have handled the whole mission without the rest of the team. Hot brass and torn stuffing tumbled across the Egyptian soil as he blasted and sawed his way through the foe.

Before long, however, as the team progressed deeper in the ruins, the cuddly foe's numbers became overwhelming.

Finally, after several hard fought encounters, the ultimate villain appeared! When the sparks were done flying, Vague Mantis Squad had triumphed again.

"You know those jerks in Dark Watchdog are just going to make fun of us for this, right?" Dot-3 asked sarcastically.

"Let 'em!" Golem-6 shot back, "You know how long it will take to get the sand out of my joints and the stuffing out of my chainsaw?"

"23 minutes?" Estimated HONE-1, dispassionately.

"...Forever!" Golem-6 responded, his vehemence deflated somewhat by the likely very accurate assessment.

"I'll help you man." MDU-L-1 quipped, "I'll have to sharpen the nicks out of my cyber cutlass anyway, the stitching on that last teddy really dinged her up!"

Dot-3 just sighed. At least they'd all survived. This time.

Hey all, just want to mention that this was a scheduled post way in advance (like a week!). Since only about part 3 is out at the moment, if you've been commenting, I have not seen it at the time of writing, so sorry if it seems like I'm unresponsive. Hope you've been enjoying the ride so far, I certainly had a blast playing. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Another LOAD model military robot like Golem 6, Dot 3 (not an acronym, she is simply the third physical iteration of the unit named Dot), likewise joined Vague Mantis as a placeholder rather than going into mothball storage. Dot is a slightly more creative and has more initiative than her colleague Golem 6, and has only had her chassis destroyed twice. Still, she remains a rather low spec LOAD unit, interesting primarily in that she is one of the few robotic entities to refer to herself with female pronouns.

Dot 3 is made from much the same parts as Golem 6, with the notable exception being that her head is from the LEGO movie robot madame, and her helmet is from KREO Mutt. She wields a Mega Bloks Call of Duty rifle, and a LEGO pistol, which will count, conveniently enough, as a rifle and pistol.

Didn't mean for Dot 3's write-up to be one of the shortest, but that's a symptom of coming after Golem, where I detailed the LOAD-type Robots' backstory. Mostly this is all just to explain why she's the only squad member with painted on mascara and lipstick. Meh.

Friday, September 22, 2017

In the early 22nd century, Maritime Shipping was revolutionized by the 'Bullet Ship,' a type of magnetically driven cargo vessel which used an electromagnetic propulsion system to travel at high speed by acting against the metal present in seawater in the same way that a bullet train works off of the rails. By 2166, however, most maritime shipping had been supplanted by orbital cannon delivery and re-entry ports, obviating the need for expensive maritime vessels, ports, and distribution centers. The impact on the human workforce was negligible, as most of these roles had long been taken by robotic entities.

One such supplanted entity, however, was High-Speed Oceanic Navigation Emulator 1 (HONE-1, pronounced H-1-1, and not Honey, unless you want to hurt his feelings). The shipping conglomerate to which he belonged, however, was at an impasse as to how to dispose of him. He was obsolete, certainly, but his expensive and sophisticated programming meant simply scrapping or mothballing would be a costly waste. Around the same time, however, R.E.D.I. was looking for robot bargains to staff Vague Mantis Squad, and HONE-1 was whisked away to governmental service.

Not designed for military service, HONE-1 nonetheless has a functioning articulation and power plant, and a high order analytical processor. His spatial awareness and mathematical acumen mean he has excellent aim and (of course) navigation skills. On the downside, he is more self aware than a typical military robot, and is somewhat prissy, often putting him at odds with the rough and tumble military lifestyle.

HONE-1 is made from a Castle Knight legs and body, the head of the wind-up robot from the blind bag wave, a Brick Warriors tactical vest, a LEGO revolver from the blind bag bandito, and Brick Warriors steampunk rifle. His weapons will count as a pistol and shotgun.

Thursday, September 21, 2017

In the earliest phase of the Robotic Earth Defense Initiative, emphasis was placed on rapidly establishing defensive coverage over large geographical regions while minimizing financial impact on member nations. Thus, many stopgap temporary units were put in place, such as the Low Overhead Automatic Defender (LOAD) model. The unfortunate acronym in no way helped ease the impact of the simple fact that the LOAD units performed sub-par to purpose built machines from other manufacturers in many regards.

Fortunately for the design bureau, the fact that 4-6 LOAD units could be manufactured for the cost of a single purpose built machine meant that the model's high criticality (unit failure) rate became a non issue when any threat could simply be swarmed with cheap, disposable LOADs.

By 2155, however, maintenance and storage costs were becoming onerous, and more capable purpose built machines were become available in greater numbers, the remaining LOAD robots were pulled out of front line service, and mothballed. However, when the Vague Mantis squad was formed, a few such units were assigned to the team as placeholders, and then left there when command oversight simply forgot about them.

Golem 6 is one such unit. A low performing example of a low performing type, Golem 6 was named as such by a team technician that pointed out, that, even for a robot, Golem executed tasks in a mechanical and thoughtless manner.

Golem 6 is made from the body and armor of a Blind Bagged Space Miner. The head of the LEGO movie Robot Miner, a LEGO bank robber watch cap, and a Brick Warriors Saw Rifle (Lancer), which will count as a rifle and saber.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

At the same time I purchased the other, largely identical Sparrow set on Clearance at WalMart, I also got this one. Aside from the Guardian figure being different, the this is pretty much a color swap. The Sparrows, Captains, and Shanks are identical. This one comes with what I think is a Warlock with autorifle rather than Hunter with handcannon. So there's that.

All the pluses and minuses we covered in the earlier post applies, though if you didn't like the colors of that one, maybe you'll like this one better!